Vampire tomb found under Polish church in first-of-its-kind discovery

Warsaw, Poland

A church in northern Poland has thrown up a surprising discovery - a "vampire tomb" buried underneath the floor. Archaeologists say this is a first-of-its-kind discovery since it is rare to find a vampire burial in a church. 

They first discovered a stone slab decorated with an engraving of a skull in the Church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the small village of Pączewo. Upon further digging, they found the skeletal remains of a man dating back to the 17th century, Daily Mail reported.

The man must have been around 50 years of age at the time of his death and was buried six feet below the slab. The skeleton had a sickle around its neck, indicating that he was considered a vampire. Notably, tying a sickle is a medieval practice which was designed to stop vampires from returning from the dead.

Two other skeletons were also found in the same place, but they didn't have a sickle around their neck. 

Anthropologist Justyna Kargus said the skull suggests that the man likely suffered several injuries and some sort of trauma before his death. 

She said, "His skull had numerous injuries indicating that he probably had many deep scars on his face."

Besides, he likely also lost some of his teeth due to the incidents that caused the scars and injuries. Kargus says this is why he likely appeared different to others. "He would've looked different to average people and that can be scary," she said.

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However, what has most shocked archaeologists is that the discovery was made in a church, which they say has never happened before. "No one expects to find a vampire in a church," she said. 

"This is the first known case of an anti-vampire burial in a church."

Kargus further informed that people who others perceived to be vampires were normally buried away from areas inhabited by common people, mostly in cemeteries or out of town. 

Church was usually reserved for "clergy, benefactors of the church, dignified and particularly deserving people were buried."

She speculated that the person must have been someone who fit the bill of a dignitary and "something caused them to be afraid of him."

In Central and Eastern Europe, people have believed in myths about the dead for hundreds of years. People used to hammer in metal rods into the skulls of some of those buried to ensure they did not return as monsters. 

The belief in vampires became widespread at one point and caused mass hysteria in the continent, leading to some such people being executed. The bodies were then either mutilated, or buried with padlocks and sickle to prevent them from returning from the dead.

There have been several more discoveries of "vampires" in Poland with the last one being of a "vampire child" who was decapitated and buried face-down.